I actually thought I already explained The Plan well enough, both in and out of character, but I suppose not.

The engineers on the Nemesis are working hardcore overtime to fix the Nemesis in four primary areas, as per acting captain Havor Maluk's orders. These four areas are:

Engines: Get them repaired just enough to take off and get to the nearest station - Fuhodo Station

Reactor: Create the framework for a jury-rigged gravity field generator, for the stellaplex Alpha is (hopefully) bringing back

Thrusters: Just enough to be able to take off (under a half-gravity field), orient, turn and dock - most thrust will come from the main engines.

Hull: Repaired and patched enough for the Nemesis to be spaceworthy again

These repairs would normally take a month, but shaving off safety checks, quality checks, any and all sleep/leisure time, most lunch breaks, and keeping a very strict watch to make sure nobody starts slacking off can get it down to 3 days - but it's hardly sustainable. Morale will be absolutely shot afterwards and the engineering crew is likely to take a fairly lengthy collective nap.

Meanwhile, Alpha will be securing the stellaplex, and Beta will be securing the nacelle. That's straightforward enough. The ship's two surviving veteran squads are both defending the Nemesis and keeping the enemies at the spaceport (north of Huhoba Qitsit) at bay.

After the mission, when all squads have returned, the engineers will hurriedly throw the stellaplex into the spot they've designed for it and fire it up. The Nemesis will take off, barely in time to avoid the incoming attack from the major military base a few thousand kilometers away, and fly to the nacelle. At this point, after getting into position special jury-rigged camera systems will fire harpoons which will clasp onto the "hooks" which are shaped roughly like so:

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At this point, the engineers will adjust the grav field to encompass the nacelle as well as the Nemesis, and the harpoons will "reel in" the nacelle, "sewing" it onto the rest of the Nemesis... at which point the Nemesis will head for low Nanyej orbit. Afterwards, the engineers will attempt to reattach the severed nacelle enough so that it won't come apart when we start the burn for Fuhodo Station.

Really sorry, guys Meant to have the post finished on the weekend, but I've been really sick the past several days and writing anything useful at all has honestly been a struggle. I'm going to get it finished as soon as I can. really sorry for the delay.

Really sorry, guys Meant to have the post finished on the weekend, but I've been really sick the past several days and writing anything useful at all has honestly been a struggle. I'm going to get it finished as soon as I can. really sorry for the delay.

Talvieno, don't apologise.
Seriously, I'd rather have a healthy tal than a REKT update, take all the time you need.

Really sorry, guys Meant to have the post finished on the weekend, but I've been really sick the past several days and writing anything useful at all has honestly been a struggle. I'm going to get it finished as soon as I can. really sorry for the delay.

Unforgivable, you lazy bum!

But seriously, no need to apologize for being sick :V
Take as long as you have to!

Really sorry, guys Meant to have the post finished on the weekend, but I've been really sick the past several days and writing anything useful at all has honestly been a struggle. I'm going to get it finished as soon as I can. really sorry for the delay.

If there's a golden rule like "don't ask to ask", it should be "don't apologize for illness-induced delays". Or something.

Really, really sorry about the lengthy delay. I'm back to normal (almost) now. Had to deal with a lot of different things the past couple weeks. It's been rough, but I think it's clearing up now. Update is mostly finished. Should be able to post soon.

I'll be swamped with midterms for the remainder of the week and will depart on a week-long service trip on Sunday, during which I'll be unable to post my actions. I'll try to finish my turn over the weekend, but if that doesn't happen, Gene should just follow Brom's orders. If a turn should happen during my trip, the same should apply.

Some fairly large-ish rule changes that are going to be in place along with the cred changes:

If you lose your entire ship, you lose your entire ship. No takesies-backsies, no cred refunds, etc. I will never put you in a position where you cannot avoid your ship being utterly destroyed beyond repair. It may not be entirely your fault, but you are able to prevent it, and typically in a way that does not depend on rolls. In short: don't expect magical credits upon your return to Tartarus/the Nemesis. If you lose your ship, there are consequences.

On the event that your ship is trashed, recovering the more expensive parts will permit you to sell them back at base price or have them repaired - even if you don't bring back the entire object. As long as you bring back more than half in a single chunk (be it a weapon, cargo pod, or any other part), I will give you the creds for it. Even if it isn't yours. If a ship explodes into tiny pieces, though, don't expect to scoop up a ton of debris and pass it off as an exploded weapon for reclaim. First, it's worth little more than scrap metal, and second, Tartarus engineers aren't that stupid.

Stat/skill points will be multiplied by 100. That is to say, you receive 1000 XP, both for stats and skills, for each fully-completed mission. Leveling from +0 to +1 will take 500 XP, and leveling from +1 to +2 will take 1000. This will let me give you smaller increments of things, which means I can award smaller bits of XP at my own discretion, for side quests.

When starting a new character some ways into the campaign, I may grant you extra creds and extra stat/skill points above your level with the goal of helping you catch up with the rest of the player characters. Exactly how much is entirely up to me. I will not discuss how much you'll get prior to you killing your old character and making a new one. Whatever I set is non-negotiable; take it or leave it. This has the side effect of making the old oft-discussed "exploit" of "kill your character and start a new one" no longer entirely valid. If you want a new character, you have to be willing to accept whatever I give you.

There will be two types of post-mission XP boosts for players that join late. The first boost type will be "passive". This is an amount of extra XP given to players for surviving missions that are higher-level than they are. By themselves, catching up to the rest of the players will be rather slow. This passive boost will be awarded at my discretion. Early game should be somewhere around 120% boost, midgame 150%, late game 180%. (Note: all very rough estimates of averages; subject to change. Just very rough numbers so you get an idea of what I'm doing here.)

The second boost type is "mentorship points" awarded to top-leveled players (after the second mission); the players can (at their discretion) give these mentorship points to characters that haven't fully caught up yet. These points will translate directly into stats, skills, and possibly creds. This will help "accelerate" the leveling process for these characters, and you can even roleplay it in-character if you wish! Ideally, a character made halfway into the campaign will be able to catch up by the end of the campaign; some of it will be in the form of mentorship points, and some will be in the form of boosted XP (mentioned in the item above) for surviving a mission above their level.

Note: even with mentorship points, you will not be able to level a character "beyond" that of the highest-leveled character. It caps out.

An interesting side effect of the 50/50 XP boost/mentorship points: I think it'll help encourage positive roleplay and teamwork, as your characters would be less likely to try to mentor the creepy loner in the corner that always has his gun trained on his allies. Or the ones that happen to look like goats. I'm interested in seeing how it pans out.

As always, with all of the above, I will try to keep things "fair" between players.